Aug09 Newsletter A TIME for Physics First

www.physicsfirstmo.org page 1

A TIME for PhysIcs fIrsTAcademy for Teachers - Inquiry and Modeling Experiences for Physics First

Leadership in Freshman physics, 2009-14

NEWSLETTER: Vol 3, No. 3, August 2009

Math-Science Partnership Grant Funded by the

National Science Foundation

Our grant entitled "A TIME for Freshman Physics in Missouri"

has been approved for funding by the National Science Foundation for five years (2009-14). The grant is funded by NSF's MSP Institute Partnerships - Teacher Institutes for the 21st Century program.

A TIME for physics First is a partnership among the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU, lead in-stitution), seven core partner school districts and several supporting partners. The project will be recruit-ing 80 Missouri ninth-grade science teachers through Fall 2009.

The partnership aims to build leadership skills with research-based professional development that includes comprehensive phys-ics content, pedagogy, research and evaluation. Participating 9th grade science teachers will become intel-lectual leaders as they learn to teach a yearlong freshman physics course. The impact of this sustainable in-stitutional change will ultimately show an increase in students’ fu-ture science coursework. The goals of the program are to:

Create a cadre of teacher-leaders • who will become advocates for

excellence in physics content and research-based pedagogy.Strengthen high school freshman • science teachers’ and students’ understanding of physics.Enhance teachers’ knowledge • and ability to utilize reform-based pedagogies in teaching freshman physics.Promote institutional change • among core partner institutions.Increase students’ interest in • science coursework in higher grades.

The Summer Academy series, key to the professional development program, is an intensive residential experience that builds in content-level each year over three years. Held at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the academies focus on physics content integrated with pedagogy and leadership training. They are team-taught by university faculty and experienced peer teach-ers. Academies will be four weeks long in years 1 and 2, and two weeks in year 3. Participants earn graduate credit plus receive a sti-pend, room, board, travel support and a kit of materials.

Additionally, selected teach-ers of mathematics from the same schools will participate in a concur-rent weeklong summer academy, and school administrators attend a three-day academy, in order to pro-vide additional support for teach-ers and students as they engage in freshman physics.

To help participating teachers implement this challenging course in the 9th grade classroom, exten-sive academic year support includes professional learning communities for small-group teamwork, follow-up sessions, support from trained coaches or mentors, online peer col-laboration, online access to content experts and a materials-kit lending program.

The project website www.phyiscsfirstmo.org will feature detailed information, application forms and updates in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

We thank the partner districts and the many supporters of this grant for their help in making the proposal successful. We now count on your continued support to make the project successful!

www.physicsfirstmo.org

Project Summary on MSP.net

The proposal, entitled Academy for Teachers us-ing Inquiry and Modeling Experiences for Freshman Physics in Missouri (A TIME for Freshman Physics in Missouri) is a Partnership among the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU), as the lead institution, sev-en core Partner school districts and several supporting partners. This Partnership creates 80 Teacher Leaders from participating Missouri school districts, who de-liver a yearlong freshman physics course. Through ten weeks in summer academies over three years and academic year follow-up experiences Teacher Leaders deepen their physics content knowledge and develop individualized leadership skills to assist other teachers of freshman physics in providing all freshman students with an inquiry and modeling based physics experi-ence. Both university faculty and the Teacher Leaders develop an expanded range of pedagogical and lead-ership skills that they share with others, as they serve as resources and catalysts for reform in science educa-tion at the secondary and post-secondary institutional levels.

In addition to the science teachers involved in the summer physics academies, selected teachers of math-ematics from the same schools participate in a concur-rent weeklong academy, and school administrators attend a three-day academy, in order to provide addi-tional support for teachers and students as they engage in freshman physics.

A curriculum team, including some of the Teacher Leaders, adapts the professional development curric-ulum used for teachers for use with ninth grade stu-dents using the educative curriculum materials (ECM)

model. Special education teachers are involved in the curriculum repurposing, as well as becoming some of the Teacher Leaders, to infuse principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to ensure the curriculum meets the needs of diverse learners. A series of forma-tive assessment tasks to enable teachers to identify student misconceptions are identified, developed and embedded within the freshman physics curriculum.

A substantive academic year component includ-ing coaches or mentors and an online component as-sists teachers. Additional teacher supports include the formation of professional learning communities for small-group teamwork, electronic resources such as pod-casts of reading pages and videos of lab setups, online mentoring, kits and equipment access, as well as video access to MU lecture series in physics and in astronomy, which addresses cutting-edge research and is geared to non-experts.

In addition to generating evidence of the impact of this endeavor, the project implements a research de-sign to answer two important questions: 1) In a teach-er intellectual leadership project, can enhancement of pedagogical practice, student content acquisition and teacher leadership growth through participation in an online learning community achieve results comparable to sustained classroom coaching support? And 2) Does implementation of Freshman Physics through the proj-ect curriculum yield more positive results in student achievement in mathematics and science as compared to more traditional educational sequencing of science?

The project will be seeking additional core school district partners. Recruitment information will be available on the project website in Fall 2009.

A TIME for Freshman Physics in Missouri Math-Science Institute Partnerships Program, National Science Foundation

grant number NSF DUE 0928924LEAd corE PArTnEr:

University of Missouri, ColumbiacorE dIsTrIcT PArTnErs:

Columbia Public SchoolsNorth Kansas City School DistrictCenter School DistrictHazelwood School DistrictKirkwood School DistrictChillicothe School DistrictHickman Mills School Districte-MINTS – Missouri Virtual Instructional Program.

suPPorTIng PArTnErs: Lincoln UniversityWilliam Woods UniversityMU Partnership for Educational RenewalMU Saturday Science Lecture Series MU Cosmic Conversations Lecture SeriesMissouri Virtual SchoolCentral Missouri Astronomical AssociationColumbia Water and LightScience Teachers of MissouriHeart of Missouri Regional Professional Develop-ment Center.


Meera Chandrasekhar, Principal Investigator

Meera Chandrasekhar is Cura-tors' Teaching Professor of

Physics and Astronomy at the Uni-versity of Missouri, Columbia. Fol-lowing her undergraduate educa-tion in India, she received a Ph. D. in Physics from Brown University, Providence, RI, in 1976. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Max-Planck-Institut in Stuttgart, W. Germany, she came to MU in 1978.

Prof. Chandrasekhar's research interests are in the area of optical spectroscopy of semiconductors, superconductors, and conjugated polymers, with an emphasis on high pressure studies. She is deeply interested in the education of young students. She has developed hands-on physics programs for K-12 stu-dents and professional develop-ment programs for K-12 teachers.

Her awards include the Mis-souri Science Educator Award, STOM, 2008; Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2006; Presi-dential Award for Excellence in Sci-ence, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, 1999; and a William T. Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching in 1997.

Prof. Chandrasekhar has served as Principal or co-Principal Investi-gator on several educational grants funded by the National Science Foundation, Missouri Department of Higher Education, and Missouri Department of Elementary and Sec-ondary Education. The last grant (2005-2008) supported development and implementation of professional development for a yearlong course for physics in ninth grade.

Sara S. Torres, co-Principal In-vestigator

Sara Torres is the K-12 science and secondary health curriculum

coordinator for Columbia Public Schools. She obtained a B.S. degree from The Ohio State University and M.A. and Ed. S. degrees from New Mexico State University. Mrs. Torres taught middle level science in New

Mexico and started the first science magnet school in the state of New Mexico in 1999. She moved to Mis-souri in 2002 and began working with Columbia Public Schools as a middle school science teacher.

Mrs. Torres’ research interests are in the area of qualitative and quantitative observations of middle school students in the areas of cur-

riculum development, implemen-tation, and evaluation; student per-formance; and locus of control.

She has received several teach-ing awards, including the Lorraine Schulte Excellence in Teaching Award, 2002; Las Cruces Public School District Teacher of the Year, Second Runner-Up, 2001; New Mexico Outstanding Elementary Science Teacher, 1999.

Mrs. Torres served as the Proj-ect Director of the Missouri Depart-ment of Elementary and Secondary Education A TIME for physics First grant (2005-2008) which supported development and implementation of professional development for a yearlong course for physics in ninth grade.

Dorina Kosztin, co-Principal In-vestigator

Dorina Kosztin is Associate Teaching Professor of Physics

and Astronomy at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She obtained her B.Sc. from University of Cluj, Romania, and her M.Sc. and Ph. D. from the University of Illinois at Ur-bana Champaign. She came to MU in 2001.

Meet our Project Personnel

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Prof. Kosztin has a strong in-terest in improving the way intro-ductory physics courses for under-graduate students are taught and in the education of younger students. She has introduced several new teaching techniques for lower-level undergraduate Physics courses, including clickers and web-based support. For her activities she re-ceived the Provost Junior Faculty Teaching Award in 2005 and the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching in 2008.

Prof. Kosztin played a key role in curriculum development and teaching in the A TIME for Physics First project funded by Mo-DESE (2005-08).

Dorina Mitrea, co-Principal In-vestigator

Dorina Mitrea is Professor of Mathematics at the University

of Missouri, Columbia. She earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 1996, af-ter which she joined the faculty at MU.

Her research interests are in the areas of Harmonic Analysis and Partial Differential Equations. Her substantial involvement in out-reach activities includes work with both students and teachers. At the middle school level, she has expe-rience coaching for the Mathcounts competition at the regional, state and national stage, as well as orga-nizing mathematics summer camps for 5-8 graders in Columbia.

Prof. Mitrea was honored by the President of the United States at the White House as coach of top-plac-ing students in the 2003 national Mathcounts Competition. She has won the 2001 Provost's Outstand-ing Junior Faculty Teaching Award

and a 2005 William T. Kemper Fel-lowship for Teaching Excellence at the University of Missouri.

Prof. Mitrea has coached high school students for math competi-tions and has organized the AMC and the Great Plains Mathematics League competitions. She has de-veloped courses and recruitment models for attracting and prepar-ing middle grade math teachers. She has developed curricular mate-rials for teacher training and imple-mented them in a sequence of three summer institutes for Missouri teachers.

Deborah Hanuscin, co-Principal Investigator

Deborah Hanuscin, Assistant Professor of Learning, Teach-

ing and Curriculum, is currently the Bess Schooling Professor of Elemen-tary Education, jointly appointed in the Department of Learning, Teach-ing, & Curriculum and Department of Physics & Astronomy at the Uni-versity of Missouri, Columbia. She obtained her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in Physics Education from Indiana University in 2004.

Prof. Hanuscin’s research inter-ests focus on teacher learning, with particular regard to scientific liter-

acy and the ways teachers portray science in the classroom. She has received numerous awards, both as a classroom teacher and university faculty member. Most recently she received the Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award and

was named Outstanding Under-graduate Faculty Instructor in the MU College of Education.

Prior to coming to MU, Prof. Hanuscin was a classroom teach-er and informal science educator. She has been involved in teacher professional development since 1996, and currently directs the MU QUEST Program for K-6 teachers, a content-focused professional devel-opment institute that includes an outreach program for elementary-age students.

James Spain, Senior Personnel

James Spain is Professor of Dairy Nutrition and Vice-Provost for

Undergraduate Studies at the Uni-versity of Missouri. He received a B.S. from North Carolina State Uni-versity and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Virginia Tech. He has been at MU since 1990.

Prof. Spain's research inter-ests focus on interactions between nutrients and the environment on lactation and reproduction of dairy cattle. He has a keen inter-

(University of Central Missouri), a M.Ed. from Lincoln University, and an Ed.S. and Ph.D. from the Uni-versity of Missouri, Columbia.

A retired physics teacher and science chair from Jefferson City High School, Dr. Nickelson has 30 years experience teaching in Mis-souri public schools. He spent five summers on the faculty of the Mis-souri Scholars Academy. He served as the Central Missouri Science Olympiad Director for eleven years. He has been an adjunct professor for Lincoln University, Linn Tech-nical State College, Columbia Col-lege, and University of Missouri, Columbia. He is also the chemistry and physics teacher for the Missouri Distance Learning High School af-ter authoring the courses.

Dr. Nickelson serves as a phys-ics teaching resource agent for the American Association of Physics

Teachers. He is chairman of the high school Department of Elementary and Secondary Education/Math-Engineering-Technology-Science committee.

His awards include Jefferson City Public Schools Teacher of the Year (finalist, Missouri Teacher of the Year), Monsanto Science Teach-

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acy and the ways teachers portray science in the classroom. She has received numerous awards, both as a classroom teacher and university faculty member. Most recently she received the Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award and

was named Outstanding Under-graduate Faculty Instructor in the MU College of Education.

Prior to coming to MU, Prof. Hanuscin was a classroom teach-er and informal science educator. She has been involved in teacher professional development since 1996, and currently directs the MU QUEST Program for K-6 teachers, a content-focused professional devel-opment institute that includes an outreach program for elementary-age students.

James Spain, Senior Personnel

James Spain is Professor of Dairy Nutrition and Vice-Provost for

Undergraduate Studies at the Uni-versity of Missouri. He received a B.S. from North Carolina State Uni-versity and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Virginia Tech. He has been at MU since 1990.

Prof. Spain's research inter-ests focus on interactions between nutrients and the environment on lactation and reproduction of dairy cattle. He has a keen inter-

est in teaching and advising MU students. He has been involved in several MU-wide activities such as Summer Welcome, Learning Com-munity Teams and undergraduate research projects. He has served as faculty advisor for several Clubs, in-cluding the Block and Bridle Club, CAFNR Student Council, QEBH and the Kappa Delta Sorority.

Prof. Spain has received several awards for teaching and advising, including the Green Chalk Award in 1996, William T. Kemper Fellow-ship for Teaching Excellence in 2001 and Governor's Award for Excel-lence in Teaching in 2002.

Sunder Balasubramanian, Se-nior Personnel

Sunder Balsubramanian is As-sistant Professor of Physics at

Lincoln University, Jefferson City. He obtained a B.Sc. in Physics from Madurai Kamaraj University, Ma-durai, India, in 1991 and an M.E. in Computer Science from the In-dian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 1995. He then obtained a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Physics in 2003. After two years of post-doctoral work at the Universi-ty of Missouri, Columbia, he joined Lincoln University as an assistant professor of physics.

Prof. Balasubramanian’s re-

search is in sensor development and in biomedical imaging. He is the Director of the Adaptive Optics and the Nanophotonics Laboratory at Lincoln University and is currently focusing on developing novel laser-acoustic detection platforms to de-feat Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and on hormone detection in small ruminants.

Prof. Balasubramanian has al-ways been interested in teaching and adopting novel teaching meth-odologies in the classroom. He is currently leading Lincoln Univer-sity’s efforts in transforming all

introductory physics courses into an inquiry/activity based learning environment. He is also interested in mentoring high-school students in research projects to expose them to frontier areas of science and technology. He has a student from Jefferson City currently building a coherent-domain imaging system to look at cells.

Dennis Nickelson, Senior Per-sonnel

Dennis Nickelson is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and

Physics at William Woods Universi-ty in Fulton. He obtained his B.S.E. in chemistry and physics from Central Missouri State University

(University of Central Missouri), a M.Ed. from Lincoln University, and an Ed.S. and Ph.D. from the Uni-versity of Missouri, Columbia.

A retired physics teacher and science chair from Jefferson City High School, Dr. Nickelson has 30 years experience teaching in Mis-souri public schools. He spent five summers on the faculty of the Mis-souri Scholars Academy. He served as the Central Missouri Science Olympiad Director for eleven years. He has been an adjunct professor for Lincoln University, Linn Tech-nical State College, Columbia Col-lege, and University of Missouri, Columbia. He is also the chemistry and physics teacher for the Missouri Distance Learning High School af-ter authoring the courses.

Dr. Nickelson serves as a phys-ics teaching resource agent for the American Association of Physics

Teachers. He is chairman of the high school Department of Elementary and Secondary Education/Math-Engineering-Technology-Science committee.

His awards include Jefferson City Public Schools Teacher of the Year (finalist, Missouri Teacher of the Year), Monsanto Science Teach-

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ing Award, Sigma Xi (Central Mis-souri Chapter) Science Teaching Award, and Missouri Academy of Science Teaching Award.

Dr. Nickelson has served as se-nior staff on several professional development projects such as the lead physical science teacher for the K-6 Missouri Science and Math project, a project pioneering the use of computers in the science class-room for Columbia Public Schools, the Missouri Constructing Physics Understanding in a Computer En-hanced Environment, and Making Science Accessible Through Inquiry and Literacy for the St. Louis Pub-lic Schools (Co-PI). He served as a coach mentor and a peer teacher in the A TIME for Physics First Project funded by Mo-DESE (2005-08).

Paul Miceli, Senior Personnel

Paul Miceli is a Professor in the Department of Physics and

Astronomy at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Prof. Miceli received his B.S. in Engineering Physics, M.S. and Ph.D. in Phys-ics at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (UIUC). His Ph.D. research was in the area of experimental Condensed Matter Physics in which he studied the critical behavior of hydrogen in modulated metals. Subsequently, he joined Bell Communications Research (Belcore) as a Member of Technical Staff from 1987 to 1992, where he applied neutron scatter-ing methods to study the recently discovered high temperature su-perconductors. In the fall of 1992 he joined the MU faculty where he pursues a research program in the area of surface physics.

Prof. Miceli's current research projects focus on understanding the atomic-scale mechanisms that

lead to the growth of films and nanocrystals. His experimental program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, is carried out with synchrotron x-ray scattering using research facilities that he developed at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory. Prof. Miceli is the Associate Director of a multi-university group that constructed and operates a beam line at the APS.

In 2006 Prof. Miceli was the recipient of the William T. Kem-per Fellowship for Teaching Excel-lence.

Angela Speck, Senior Personnel

Angela Speck is an Associate Pro-fessor of Astrophysics at Miz-

zou. She obtained her B.Sc (Hons) in astrophysics from Queen Mary, University of London, followed by a Ph.D. in astronomy from Univer-sity College London (UCL) in 1998. After postdoctoral appointments at UCL and University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, she came to Mizzou in 2002. She is directly re-sponsible for the expansion of the MU Astronomy program (which includes a minor) and is now the Director of Astronomy at MU.

Prof. Speck's research includes

studying stardust using infrared observing techniques and develop-ing technologies and pedagogies for teaching astronomy. She was the recipient of the 2008 Provost's Out-standing Junior Faculty Research and Creative Activity Award. She has also received an NSF CAREER

Award, and has developed a large program aimed at providing re-search opportunites for undergrad-uates interested in astronomy.

Prof. Speck is also the orga-nizer of a public outreach program "Cosmic Conversations", and co-ordinates tours of the Laws Obser-vatory for school and pre-school groups. In addition Prof. Speck is currently the Chair of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory Users Committee.

Sarah Hill, Project Director

Sarah Hill earned a bachelor’s de-gree in journalism from the Uni-

versity of Missouri in 1981. She is the Project Director for the A TIME for Physics First program, an exten-sion of her position as Program Co-ordinator for the previous Ed-MSP program of the same name. She is a member of the project management team and reports directly to PI Prof. Meera Chandrasekhar.

Ms Hill will be responsible for management of day-to-day activi-ties, communication with partners and participants, coordination of

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Editorial Board:Sarah Hill [email protected] Chandrasekhar [email protected] Torres [email protected]

2009 A TIME for Physics FirstDepartment of Physics and AstronomyUniversity of Missouri, Columbia MO 65211

Support: This project is supported by the National Science Foundation grant # NSF DUE 0928924. NSF is not responsible for the opinions expressed in this publication.

Fast Facts:

Grant start date: September 1, 2009Grant period: 5 yearsFunding Agency: National Science FoundationFirst summer academy: Summer 2010Applications available: early Fall 2009Target Participants: Ninth grade science teachers in Missouri school districtsContact: Sarah Hill Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 Telephone: (573)-882-7997 FAX: (573)=882-4195 Email: [email protected] information: Please refer to the project web-site, www.physicsfirstmo.org

academy-related administrative work; coordination of applications and admissions details; execution of the day-to-day needs of the sum-mer academy, and coordination of the kit lending library.

Prior professional experience includes a six-year stint as coordi-nator of a statewide professional development and kit-lending pro-gram for K-6 science teachers, the Show-Me Science Center, which was affiliated with the Science

Teachers of Missouri and operated out of the science department of Columbia Public Schools.

Martha A. Henry and Keith S. Murray, Evaluators

Martha A. Henry, Ed.D., CEP, and Keith Murray, CEP, of M.A.

Henry Consulting, LLC are the lead evaluators for the project. They and their firm have considerable experi-ence in the evaluation of math and science partnerships and similar teacher professional development projects, as well as evaluation and research in other areas of education and in public health, the arts, and non-profit management.

Dr. Henry’s doctorate is from the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Her work in evaluation is in-formed by her own prior career in K-12 and university-level education as a teacher, curriculum developer, researcher and program manager.

Mr. Murray’s research back-ground began in public health and medical fields. He has as served as project director for psychiatric re-search grants and large-scale data collection systems, and led statis-tics units in state agencies.

Other members of the evalua-tion team serve as quantitative and qualitative analysts and support field work and project coordina-tion.


From:A TIME for Physics First223 Physics BuildingUniversity of MissouriColumbia MO 65211

Aug09 Newsletter A TIME for Physics First

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